The UK Modern Slavery Act is one of the most far reaching regulations in the world addressing issues of modern slavery, which involves human trafficking offences, child labour, and forced labour, and introduces new preventive measures. There is a global concern on the matter and the ILO estimates that 21 million people in the world are victims of forced labour.
On the 17th Jan 2019, the BBGV Business Centre in association with the University of Leeds represented by Dr Matthew Davis and Associate Professor Hinrich Voss, held a workshop on "The impact of the UK Modern Slavery Act on global Fashion and textile industry" at Pullman Saigon Centre Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City, with the participation of15 representatives from businesses in the industry, NGOS, law and advisory companies. Joining the event, 6 speakers from the University of Leeds, Middlesex University, Pacific Links Foundation, Coats Phong Phu, and the 6AM Company shared their valuable findings and insights and provided useful case studies and practices from their organisations.
The workshop was particularly engaging not only from the presentations but also the open discussion which followed. Labour rights, supply chain management, human-trafficking as well as other associated matters were call covered throughout the session with various problems and issues raised, analysis of the situation in Vietnam, and some potential opportunities to solutions were covered.
This project is supported by the British Academy's Tackling Slavery, Human Trafficking and Child Labour in Modern Business Programme. The research by Leeds University is covering other markets countries too and findings from this workshop in Vietnam will be included in their overall report.